A Serpent's Heart
by StarrSS
Summary: Snape and Lily's relationship before that fateful day by the lake. Different encounters with past characters and an awkward, blooming romance between Sev and Lily. Rated T for future chapters. Reviews much appreciated!
1. Prologue

Prologue...

The seven-year-old Severus Snape had undoubtedly just done magic for the first time. Green and purple fireworks had risen and exploded out of nowhere with a bang in his living room, and flames were now engulfing the antique furniture. Tobias Snape stood, frozen, in the middle of the room. He had just been yelling at his son as he usually did, but this time he realized he'd gone too far. He had always known deep down that it was a possibility Severus would inherit Eileen's magical abilities, he just never expected it to happen so early in the boy's life.

"EILEEN!" Tobias shouted with absolute fury. Eileen Snape came running into the living room, looking haggard and exhausted. She gasped and stared at Severus, who was shaking with rage. His long, black hair was in his face, and he looked up at his parents through narrowed black eyes, giving him the appearance of a demon child. Eileen withdrew her short black wand from her pocket, and with a swish and a flick, the flames threatening to burn the room to ashes disappeared.

"Up to your room—NOW!" yelled Eileen, pointing up the stairs and glaring at her son. Severus, not knowing what else he could do, followed the direction of the pointed finger and ran up to his room. He slammed the door as hard and quickly as he could, so he would not have to hear even a second of the screaming he knew was coming. But it had already started before he could reach his bed and throw a pillow over both of his ears.

"I don't want any more bloody wizards in this fucking family!" Severus heard Tobias say, along with the sound of a chair being thrown across the room.

"Tobias, he has the gift of magic, what do you expect him to do, stay here? If we send him to school at least he'll be out of the way!" Eileen exclaimed fiercely.

Severus pushed the worn out pillow even harder against his ears and looked up at his bedroom ceiling. The painting was chipped white, and a big fly was walking along one of the cracks. It took off into the air after a few seconds and then flew out the open window next to the bed. Severus wished he could be a fly on the wall; then maybe his parents wouldn't have so many problems.

Severus had always suspected that there was something different about him, something that set him apart from the other kids at his elementary school. Sometimes when he was in his seat during class, and one of the other children started to tease him about his strange clothes and even stranger features, he would feel a tingle erupt and spread in his body, making his blood hot. Then a certain force would surround his hands, threatening to explode into something Severus could not even imagine. But he would hold on tightly to his desk and hold in the explosion, because he knew that whatever happened if he let go would not be good.

When he asked his few allies at school what happened to them when they got angry, he would always get the same response:

"Well, I usually just feel...angry. I don't know...its just a feeling, I can't explain it."

"So, you don't get a tingle and a sort of force field around your hands that's gonna explode any second?" Severus would ask.

"What? Mate, the nurse is right down the corridor...er, you may want to give her a visit."

So after awhile Severus stopped asking others about this weird feeling he was getting when he became angry or overwhelmed. And he never told his parents about it either, but he never really told his parents anything anyway.

As Severus lay on his bed recalling that strange tingling that he got so often and had just gotten in his living room, he finally realized what he was. That thing that had stopped the fire in the living room was a wand. And the force field that he had felt surrounding his fingers was_ magic. _Now he understood. He, Severus Snape, was a wizard.


	2. Chapter 2

Three Years Later...

The sound of muffled voices grew louder and louder in Severus' ears as he crept toward the playground, and he soon recognized them. One was soft and excited, and the other was frightened and a little bit bossy-sounding. Both were females.

"Mummy told you not to!" said the bossy sounding voice belonging to Petunia Evans. "Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!" she said scornfully to her younger sister, Lily. Lily turned to face her sister and a sheet of red hair flew through the air as she did so.

Severus had crouched down behind a stubby bush and was now watching the two girls intently, especially Lily. His heart began to pound as the girl hopped over right next to the bush, bent over, and picked up a small pink flower from the ground. She began to show Petunia a trick she could do with the flower, and before he knew what he was doing, Snape jumped out of the bush and said,

"It's obvious isn't it?"

And that was the beginning of Severus and Lily's relationship. From that day on, Severus began to tell Lily everything he had learned about magic by eavesdropping on his parents and occasionally getting up the nerve to ask his mother a question. The two would meet every other day in the small forest in the corner of their neighborhood, and they would discuss everything from Muggles to Dementors to where they would be attending school together for the next seven years, Hogwarts. During this time, Lily had gotten over her initial fear of Severus, because she realized that she was just like him. In fact, she had begun to consider him a close friend. Severus had always known from the moment he saw Lily that he would like her company--she was pretty, smart, and kind, and Severus wasn't used to those three traits in a person. The two children were an odd match, but as they say, _opposites attract_.


	3. Chapter 3

"I can't believe you were sorted into Gryffindor! It just doesn't make sense!" Severus said to Lily as they filed out of the Great Hall together.

"Why not?" Lily asked, confused. Severus had lately been showing a lot of dislike toward Gryffindor, even before they had been sorted, and Lily finally decided to figure out why.

"Because Gryffindor is for gits! That's why! Gryffindors are stupid, you're smart! They're conceited and pompous about _everything, _and you're the most humble person I know." He stopped dead in his tracks as Lily listened intently.

"What's wrong, Sev?" she asked, stopping beside him, as he stared straight ahead with a look of fear and loathing in his eyes.

"Lily, do you want to know the worst thing about Gryffindor house?" he asked, not looking at her. He seemed to shrink into himself at that moment, as if he were a turtle retreating into its shell.

"Yes, I do. What?" Lily asked.

"Those two are in it." Severus said, pointing to two approaching figures; James Potter and Sirius Black.

"Oh, those are the prats we met on the train! And the one with the long hair was next to me during the feast! I can't say I disagree with you about that though, Sev, those two are a disgrace to Gryffindor."

But Severus wasn't really listening to her. He was thinking about the nickname the two male Gryffindors had already come up with for him; _Snivellus_. He rolled the name around in his brain and tried to find something good about it, but he couldn't. And he hadn't even really done anything to deserve it.

"Going somewhere, Snivellus?" James Potter said when he saw Severus standing completely still, unable to move. Sirius Black smirked and folded his arms across his chest.

"Away from you." Severus snarled, and he finally got his legs to move.

"Ooooh, not very friendly!" Potter smirked in a way not unlike Black. Two boys were behind Potter and Black, one with old robes and worry lines etched on his face, and the other with a round face and beady eyes. They were watching the scene, but only one of them seemed to disagree with Potter's behavior.

Severus tried to push by the four boys, and Lily followed with a scowl on her face, but not before James noticed that she was, again, walking with Severus Snape.

"Evans, what are you doing with this git anyway? Do you see something behind that greasy hair that's worth while?" James asked Lily. Two of the other boys laughed maliciously, while the fourth was still looking somewhat uncomfortable. After hearing this snide remark, Lily turned on her heel and stared straight up at this arrogant Potter with hate in her sparkling green eyes. Severus stood at her side, not sure what to do.

"This 'git', as you feel it is your right to call him, is my friend, and I happen to see a lot of good things about him that you don't see! Furthermore, I would rather have greasy hair than stupid-looking windblown hair like yours any day!" Lily said to James, and with that, she took off walking, Severus right beside her.

"I swear, if they ever call you 'Snivellus' again, I'll...I'll..." Lily stammered. She and Severus had both snuck out their common rooms that evening so they could talk, but Lily was doing most of the talking.

"I mean, that Potter's known you for, what, a few hours? And now he thinks its his prerogative to bully you like that?" she continued.

Severus just sat in the corridor next to her, nodding, but not saying a word. Because he had never in his eleven years of life been stuck up for the way Lily had stuck up for him that day. Instead of being angry about the attack by Potter and Black, he was simply happy that Lily had been there and said the things she had. He watched her shiny red hair swing back and forth as she paced in the corridor, mumbling about what stupid prats the two Gryffindors were.

"Lily!" he finally said, looking up at her. She stopped pacing and looked at him.

"What?" she asked, looking like she had just woken from a bad dream.

"Thanks. For what you said today." He gave her a small smile. She sighed and smiled back, then sat down beside him. To Severus' shock, she reached over and hugged him tightly. He stiffened and began to feel a little dizzy. Her hair tickled his cheek. He smiled and awkwardly put his arms around her waist, hugging her back.

While Severus was trying to fall asleep that night, he tried desperately to remember the last time he had been embraced like that. But he couldn't remember, because he _hadn't _ever been embraced like that. Not by his mother, his father, or his friends in elementary school.

He fell asleep that night thinking about Lily, and he dreamt about her long red hair in his face.


	4. Chapter 4

Lily woke up the next morning with a sore neck; she had slept on it funny. As she rubbed it with the heel of her hand, the events of the night before began to swim into her memory. She remembered the way Severus had tensed against her as she hugged him, as if he'd never been hugged before, and how he had awkwardly and hesitatingly put his arms around her, as if he hadn't known what to do with his arms.

She stretched as she sat up in bed. It was early in the morning, before the break of dawn, and her fellow Gryffindors were all asleep.

Lily knew that Severus had never gotten along with his family, ever since he was born. He had not given her details about his childhood, except that his parents fought almost every night about every topic that came up. Lily also knew that a serpent's heart was not one that accepted love very easily; they only knew how to except power. But in the back of her mind was the nagging thought, _Maybe if he'd had a choice about his parents loving him, he wouldn't be in Slytherin now. Maybe if the Slytherin's had been loved by their parents, as most of the Gryffindors had, there would be no such thing as Slytherin. _

She knew this was an obscure thought, and a generalization that none of the Slytherins had ever been loved by their parents, but she couldn't help but wonder. And the fact that she liked Severus so much certainly added to her hope that it wasn't his fault he was in Slytherin.

She sighed and slowly got out of bed, her head pounding in protest. For an eleven-year-old, staying out until midnight is bound to make you tired the next morning, and she knew that, but she had needed to talk to Severus and could not have said what was on her mind in front of other students. Lily quietly descended the stairs into the Gryffindor common room, and headed toward the portrait hole. It swung forward to let her out. She went through it and started walking down the corridor.

"Oi! What are you doing up at this hour?" screamed the Fat Lady after her.

"I don't know! But once I wake up in the morning, there's no chance of falling back asleep, so I thought I'd take a walk." said Lily, turning around to face the old-fashioned-looking, rather large woman in the portrait behind her.

"Well, you know what they say about early birds," said the Fat Lady ominously. Lily, having been raised by muggles, knew exactly what they say about early birds.

"Early birds get the worm?" she asked, confused.

"No, silly girl! Early birds at Hogwarts get dragged to the dungeons by their ears, where a drunken Filch will be waiting with a cactus and a croquet mallet!" she said as if it were obvious. Lily scowled as she thought of the old caretaker, holding his cat Mrs. Norris, with his jowls aquiver.

"Well, then I'll just have to avoid him! See you later!" she said, and she started on her way again.

She walked aimlessly through the corridors, wondering what her first day of classes was going to be like, and how many of the classes she would have with Severus. She was a little bit nervous, and she started biting her nails as she walked, looking down at the ancient floor. Suddenly she felt something bump into her, and she stumbled backward. It was Severus.

"Sev! Bloody Hell, you gave me a fright!" Lily said, completely shocked. After all, it was four o'clock in the morning, and she never expected to run into another student this early, especially not her best friend. Severus looked just as surprised as Lily; his black eyes had widened and his jaw had dropped at the sight of her. The fact that she had swore added to the shock. His hair was untidy and sticking up everywhere, but he was already wearing his school robes, with his Slytherin pin shining dully in the morning light now streaming through the windows.

"Sorry, I...What are you doing up?" he asked her.

"I might ask you the same question!" she said back. They stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, both of them remembering their recent dreams and thoughts.

"I'm nervous." Lily finally said, breaking the ice. Severus gave her a weird look. "About our first day of classes, I mean," she finished hastily.

"I am too. That's why I'm up right now. I can never go back to sleep after I wake up," Severus said, and together they fell into step. They began walking down the second floor corridor.

"That's me, too. Especially on a morning like this one! It's so stressful!" Lily said, wringing her hands.

"I hope we have some classes together."

"I'm sure we will. Gryffindors and Slytherins have Potions and Herbology together, don't they?"

"Did Dumbledore say that last night at the feast?"

"Yes, I think so. Maybe I wasn't listening correctly, though. After all, I was putting a lot of concentration into sitting as far away from Sirius Black as possible, even though he was next to me at the table." Lily said, annoyed. Severus laughed, half amused and half relieved that she didn't fancy Sirius Black, like every other girl at Hogwarts did.

The two walked a while longer before everyone started waking up, and then it was time for breakfast. Lily had stopped in Gryffindor tower--Severus waited outside the portrait hole--to throw her school robes on over her pajamas; she would have time to change into her clothes after breakfast. Then they walked down the moving staircases to the Great Hall. When they were almost there, Lily noticed two boys walking back towards them. One was slightly fat with a dumbfounded look on his face, and the other was explaining something to him. She recognized them to be the boys called Crabbe and Goyle.

"No, I told you, the big one with the bushy beard is Dumbledore. The old guy with the hat on is Hagrid,"

Goyle was saying to Crabbe.

"No! That's wrong! Hagrid is a witch! She's the one who was sitting at the far end of the table!" Crabbe retorted. Lily stifled a giggle, and she could see Severus smirking out of the corner of her eye. When they passed each other, Crabbe and Goyle looked up from their intense conversation and yelled out together, "Oh, hey Snape!" They bumped into each other as they did so. Severus just nodded at them and they kept walking. When they were out of earshot, Lily let out her giggle and said,

"Those two are pretty thick, aren't they?"

"Yeah, they're like dogs. They follow Lucius Malfoy around all day and do whatever he wants. Lucius told me at the feast last night." Severus answered.

_He must be the creepy one with the blonde hair and the gray eyes...I'll be avoiding him, _Lily thought as they entered the Great Hall.

"I guess we'll go our separate ways then, at least until classes start." Severus said to her as they headed toward their house tables.

"Yeah, okay. See you, Sev!" She smiled at him, and he grinned back happily. Then they went to sit down, one with the lions and one with the serpents.


	5. Chapter 5

5. Great Hall

(Author's Note: I completely forgot to reference Wizard Angst in the last chapter! Full credit goes to Potter Puppet Pals for the line about the drunken Filch!)

As everybody filed into the Great Hall for breakfast, Lily spotted James Potter already sitting down with Sirius Black and the other two boys whom she had learned were named Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. James was watching Severus as he went to sit down with his fellow Slytherins, but his eyes left the Slytherins when he saw Lily. She sat down near him for lack of other places to sit, and when she did, he called out,

"Hey Evans!" with a stupid, trying-to-be-charming grin on his face. "How's everything?" Lily turned around and answered him politely.

"Just fine, thank you." And then she turned back around to talk to the girl on her other side, Kate. Looking slightly put out, James turned back to his friends and they began to talk about who would be on the Quidditch team this year.

Meanwhile, Severus was sitting next to Lucius Malfoy, who was quietly explaining different things about Hogwarts to him. Severus nodded and blinked as a ray of sun hit Lucius' blonde head and threatened to blind him.

"As you may already know, the Gryffindors are our enemies in every way. They bring it upon themselves, you know. They're brave and true, oh yes, but you'd think they all had rocks for brains the way they behave. _Especially _that Potter. I'd like to show him a thing or two about how my school is run." Lucius drawled. Then, with a quick glance up to the staff table, he whipped his wand out of his cloak pocket and focused on the back of James Potter's head. He flicked the wand upwards with a slight movement of his forefinger and thumb, and then suddenly Potter's hair had caught fire.

"Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh! Somebody! Put it out! PUT IT OUT!!!" James started screaming as he began to feel his hair burn to a crisp. Lily looked up from her breakfast and smiled in complete delight, in spite of the fact that this was her housemate. She subtley looked over at the Slytherin table and noticed that Lucius Malfoy and Severus were looking around innocently, Severus holding back a laugh. Lily snorted when she saw his face, and then silently began to laugh as James started frantically smacking his head to put out the monstrous flames. Sirius Black was standing at his side, his hand hesitatingly moving toward James' head, then snapping back. Armando Dippet, the Headmaster, turned and looked towards the ruckus from the staff table. He gasped, and then stood up while quickly taking his wand from his deep robe pocket. He flicked his wand in Potter's direction, and the fire burned out with a sizzle. The entire hall was silent for a split second as Dippet sat back down, but then, the crowd broke out into a tumultous roar of laughter. One boy at the Hufflepuff table stood up and began to dance, imitating Potter's strange movements of the moment before, which only made the laughter louder. The only one's not laughing were sitting at the staff table or at the Gryffindor table. Lily had jumped up to get a better view of the Hufflepuff boy.

"SILENCE!" Dippet suddenly shouted, his booming voice echoing off the walls. The noise quelled. Lily ran back to her seat, along with about fifty other Slytherins, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws. James Potter looked at the Headmaster gratefully.

"And that, my dear First Year, is how my school is run. Any questions?" Lucius drawled, a smug grin creeping on to his face. Severus wiped the remaining tears of laughter from his cheeks. He hadn't laughed that hard since he had first met Lily's sister Petunia.

"Just one. Do you do that sort of thing often?" Severus asked, looking up at him hopefully.

"You see, young Severus, I have a sort of system that I developed with my close friends Crabbe and Goyle in our third year here. It's simple, yet it amuses nearly everybody who is not a Gryffindor. Every year, we find the biggest prat in Gryffindor house, and we humiliate him whenever possible. I think you may agree that Potter is the ultimate prat this year, even if it his his first year. I think this will put him in his place, don't you?" Lucius said.

"Yes, I do," said Severus simply, and then they both went back to eating their breakfasts.

Lily and Severus did end up having a few classes together. They had not known before that they would not have the same classes every day, and that each time they had a class it would not necessarily be with the same house. They weren't sure how the system worked, but they weren't about to try and figure it out, so they discussed the classes they had had separately at the end of the day. There wasn't really a good place for students of different houses to see each other outside of the Great Hall, so the two went to the same place they had talked the night before. It was not comfortable like their Common Rooms, but it would have to do.

"So what did you think of Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Lily asked Severus.

"That Slughorn guy asked me if I wanted to be in this club thing. He called it the 'Slug Club'," Severus said with an air of amusement.

"Hey, me too! We've got to join so we can be together more often!" Lily said excitedly. Severus blushed and smiled.

"I told him I would think about it."

"I did, too. That was before I knew you got invited, though. I wonder why he picked us?" Lily asked.

"Probably because we're the only students here who aren't completely insane, stupid, or obsessed with ourselves. This bloke in Slytherin, Lucius is his name, well, he's great and all, but bloody Hell! He went on and on about the 'pure blood' thing at breakfast this morning until someone told him to pass the kippers. It was mental!"

"Well, I for one am getting rather sick of hearing about whether people are pure-blood of half'-blood or muggle-born. I mean, who really cares?"

"I think certain people do care," said Severus quietly. Lily didn't respond.

They changed the subject after that, because neither of them had anything else to say about it. They went to bed a little while later, but Severus was troubled and couldn't sleep. He was thinking about something Lucius had said earlier that day. Something that had gotten wild approval from many of the other Slytherins.

"Personally, I think the mudbloods are like weeds in our garden. They should be yanked out. Or rather, we should get rid of them before they multiply. But that's another event for another day, preferably in the near future, right boys?" At least ten other Slytherins had cheered in agreement. Severus has smiled, as if he had also agreed with Lucius, when he was really completely stricken with horror. Only one thought dominated his head that night. Only one thing stopped his eyes from falling shut and his mind from resting.

_Lily is a muggle-born._


	6. Chapter 6

Severus and Lily's first couple of years at Hogwarts seemed to go by faster than they expected, and before they knew it, they were heading to Diagon Alley for the third time for school supplies.

Their first two years had been interesting to say the least, but their friendship had grown stronger than ever after facing situations that threatened to tear them apart.

There had been the time Lucius Malfoy had tried to jinx Lily in the hallway after discovering how popular she was with everybody at Hogwarts, but Severus had stopped him with simply saying, "No...she's all right. Let her alone."

And during the past two years, Severus had begun to realize that he was not well liked by anyone outside of his few friends in Slytherin, and of course Lily. James Potter and Sirius Black seemed to think it was the funniest thing in the world to call him 'Snivellus' in front of everybody, and once they had even hexed him in the hallway, making him fall face first to the floor. The professors had punished Potter and Black, but all the two boys wanted to do was make Severus' life a living hell. It was mainly Potter being envious of Severus that sparked his actions, and Black followed everything he did. Jealousy emanated from every pore in Potter's body, and Severus knew it, so he chose not to fight back. His strategy was to simply stay close to Lily whenever he could, which he would have done even if Potter wasn't a threat. But it was constantly a battle for the girl's attention.

And so that was how their first two years had been. But despite Gryffindor's mutual hatred with Slytherin, Lily and Severus remained best friends. The main element that had kept them together was their stubborness and obvious dismissal of what other people thought of them. It also helped that Lucius stepped in once and a while to turn James Potter into a toadstool.

Severus and Lily walked into the Leaky Cauldron on a cool, breezy day, wearing their long black cloaks. They definitely didn't look like Muggles, but they didn't look like wizards either. They just looked strange. One small boy with his mother gaped at them as he passed by, his head turning as he got farther away. Severus and Lily giggled at the the ridiculousness of it all. Sometimes they wondered how Muggles lived without wands and potions and broomsticks.

"So what do we need this year?" Lily said, pulling her supplies list from her cloak pocket as Severus held the door open for her. He followed her in and pulled his own list out.

"Bloody Hell! There's so much stuff on this list! Herbology: A Fun and Interesting Guide to Plants? What rubbish!" Severus said.

"Gosh, you're right. There have to be at least thirty things on this list! We're going to be here a bit longer than I expected." Lily replied, scanning the bit of parchment in her hand.

"We'd better get started, then." Severus said, sighing. They walked through the Leaky Cauldron to the other exit where the brick wall separated and made an opening to Diagon Alley.

The street was crowded with witches and wizards and lost Muggle parents, all heading in different directions. Lily and Severus took in the familiar sight with smiles on their faces. Even if it was buying school supplies, they were just happy to be together again after a long summer of being apart. Lily had gone on vacation with her family in Spain, leaving Severus to put up with his two temperamental parents. He had basically spent the summer thinking about its end.

"Well let's start with Madam Malkin's...I need some new robes. I think I grew over the summer." Lily said with a sheepish grin. It was true; she had grown about three inches while in Spain, and she was now a whole head taller than Severus.

"You _think_ you grew? Evans, you look like a skyscraper!"

"Oh, piss off! You sound like that Potter, calling me Evans." They looked at each other, and without another word they both burst out laughing, and didn't stop until Madame Malkin herself shushed them inside her shoppe.

Two hours later, after collecting every thing they needed on their lists, they hobbled down the street, their faces hidden by boxes that were stacked up in their arms. They were grateful that they hadn't needed new cauldons this year. That would not have been good.

"I don't want to go home." Severus suddenly exclaimed, placing his boxes on the ground. He had been thinking this the whole time they had been there, but this was the first time he'd said it aloud.

"You mean Hogwarts?" Lily asked, setting her boxes next to his. She turned to face him and crossed her arms. It was getting chilly out.

"No. I mean back to my house. With Mum and Dad."

"Sev, don't worry, we only have a week until school starts. You'll be fine." She said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He looked at her through his pitch black hair and shook it out of his face. When he did, Lily suddenly found herself taking her hand away after a strange jolt of energy coursed through her body. She shivered, wondering if she should have gotten warmer cloaks.

"Maybe I'll stay here for a week. In a little inn or something."

"Are you joking, Sev? Do you even have the money for that?"

"Yes, I have leftover. I just can't go back there. They don't want me there anyway. I don't even think they know I'm gone."

"I guess I have no choice. I'll have to come, too." Lily said defiantly.

"What!? You must be mental! You can't come to my house!"

"No, you git, I meant to an inn. If you're going, I'm coming with you. You can't just stay in an inn for a week alone--you're not even thirteen yet!"

Severus scowled at that. He did want Lily to come. But he knew her parents would be scared to death about where she was, and they would blame him for it. As if she could read his mind, Lily said,

"I'll send an owl to my mum and dad right now, Sev. It'll be fine." She gave him a pleading look and stuck her bottom lip out. Her hair was being blown about by the wind and her eyes shone like emeralds. Severus was mesmerized.

"I suppose so." he grumbled, tearing his eyes away from her face. _What's wrong with me?, _he thought. _I can't even look at her anymore without swooning like a complete prat._

"Hurray! We'll have so much fun, I know it!" Lily said, throwing her arms around his neck with joy. His pale cheeks turned bright red. She withdrew from him a few seconds later, still feeling the warmth of him. _My cheeks are naturally pink, _she thought as she felt them burn.

"Well, we should find an owl, then." Severus said, picking up his boxes once again.

"There's Fran's Familiars! They have owls. I'll rent one," Lily said, picking up her boxes and starting towards the shoppe. Severus followed.

It didn't take long to send an owl and find an inn; there were plenty of places to stay in Diagon Alley. The problem was whether they were going to be let in without adult supervision.

" 'Ow old are you two anyways? Should'n' yeh 'ave yur mums and dads wif yeh?" The man who showed them to their room not only didn't care that they were twelve, he was also drunk from too many firewhiskeys. It was only about eight o'clock at night, but he'd been drinking all day.

"Well, they're coming later," Severus lied. The man nodded and wobbled where he stood, then descended the stairs into the lobby.

"I can't believe we actually got a room." Lily said as she turned the key in the lock. She opened the door. They stepped inside.

"Well." Severus said, taking in the scene before them.

There were two beds, both with mustard-yellow comforters and brown pillows. There was one small window on the left wall that was covered in grime. The floor was relatively clean, but there was a large wine stain next to one of the beds and a dead spider in the right far corner. The ceiling was cracked, and Severus was reminded of his own room for a moment.

"Bloody Hell," Lily said quietly. Lily didn't swear very often.

"You were the one who insisted on coming. Just remember that," Severus threw his new trunk and school supplies on the bed. Lily snorted softly and quickly brought a hand to her mouth. She couldn't hold it.

"Its...its...so...PICTURESQUE!" she yelped, and before she knew it she was on the floor laughing, tears pooling in her eyes. Severus watched in awe. A smile began to twitch on the edges of his lips. Then he was laughing too. He threw himself onto the yellow bed and laughed for what seemed like forever, Lily still gasping on the floor.

"What shall we name the spider, then?" she asked him, propping herself up on her elbows.

"I've got one! How about 'James'?" Severus said.

"Damn it, I was going to name the stain James!" Lily answered, and that brought about another gale of laughter.

"Well I don't regret it," Lily said when they finally calmed down.

"Well, good," said Severus. He looked down at her from the side of the bed.

"What?" said Lily, smiling.

"Oh, nothing. You're just lying on top of James, that's all," Severus said nonchalantly. Lily sprung up from the floor with a squeal and noticed that she had in fact been lying on top of the old wine stain. They giggled as Lily stood up, brushing herself off.

"You're such a prat," she told him, smacking his shoulder. The only thing Severus could do was smile.


End file.
